PHASES OF NATURE AROUND PRETORIA. 57 



on the outskirts of the town. Most of these people 

 kept a few poultry, and their young chickens and 

 ducklings too often served as food for the active and 

 rapacious birds. I skinned several specimens that 

 were shot about this time, and they were lined with 

 layers of yellow fat, similar to what is found in an over- 

 fed Christmas goose. These buzzards were particularly 

 fond of sitting on the telegraph-poles that crossed the 

 veld, or using the tops of ant-hills as a post of obser- 

 vation, and were a terror to all the domestic birds of 

 the neighbourhood. The dread of impending evil sits 

 as heavily on the minds of these ducks and fowls as the 

 fear of poverty chills the heart of so many men ; and I 

 once witnessed this instinctive or inherited terror, in 

 the wild alarm shown by a brood of young ducklings at 

 the shadow and sudden appearance of a tame pigeon 

 just above them. This poor pigeon unwittingly caused a 

 Buzzard panic, and proved unmistakably the frequency 

 of a real danger, though giving at the time a false 

 alarm. 



